A few miles from Zuni, as we move eastward, there gradually comes to
view a bold, high, sandstone rock, a quadrangular wall, white, veined
with yellow, named Inscription Rock. It is nearly a mile in length and
more than two hundred feet in height. Approaching it, tower and turret,
architrave and pillar rise slowly into view. We see a mighty structure
Nature has wrought in noble architecture, and that no extravagant
coloring gave it the old Spanish name _El Moro_--The Castle. The
surface of the mountain-wall on the north and south faces is written
over with names otherwise lost to history, records that light the dark
way like shining torches. Some are deeply and beautifully cut into the
plane surface and reach back more than three hundred years. The older
inscriptions are Spanish, carefully graven upon the vertical faces,
about the height of a man’s head from the ground. Usually a date, a
brief memorandum of the purpose and line of march of the Castilian
soldiery, the names of travellers exploring the country, or Franciscan
friars going into the wilderness in search of the lost tribes of Israel.
At the foot of the towering steep is a gushing spring of sparkling
water, and fresh grass, such as is not often seen except in narrow
valleys among the arid plains of the territories. After rest, food,
siesta, the traveler, looking up to the immense table of stone before
him, naturally adds his own name to the constantly-increasing list
on the written mountain, which has now grown into a confused mass of
hieroglyphs--Indian signs, the favorite being the track of a moccasin,
indicative of marching; decayed and decaying inscriptions, and names
of old adventurers. Let us loiter awhile and read, for it is not often
such a register is laid open to any tourist.
Close to the left corner, almost hidden by brushwood, is the oldest
date, engraved in the rock nearly a century before the landing of the
Pilgrim Fathers--Don José de Basconzales, 1526. This is the sole record
of his expedition, at once his history and his cenotaph. He went with
an exploring party from the City of Mexico, and never returned; nor
were they heard of after leaving Zuni. Whether they perished in secret
defiles, cut off by the skulking Apache, who dogged every step of the
invader, or gave out through fatigue and thirst in the deep cañons and
sterile _vegas_, belongs to the voiceless past. In some unnamed spot
he sleeps with the silent majority--a mighty company.
In the moist air of England these letters would be mossed over and
wholly illegible; but the dry, dewless air of New Mexico holds decay
in check, and in this regard almost equals the atmosphere of Egypt.
Among recent inscriptions appear the autographs of the United States
explorers--Whipple, Simpson, and others; and still nearer our day the
signs manual of the Smiths, Joneses, Browns, and the rest. The sixth
name on the list is the one whose fortunes we are trying to trace out
and follow, less for the sake of his king and country than because he
was attended by the true love and faithful knight of the little Rose of
Castile.
It runs: Here passed Don Diego de Bargas, to conquer Santa Fé for the
royal crown, New Mexico, at his own cost, in the year 1692.
Many secrets we cannot guess are hidden in the silence there, with the
sands of ages drifted above them; but it is plain to see Vargas was
in high feather when he made his proud record on the wall of El Moro.
Observe the pert little crow, “at his own cost.”
Luckily, there is still extant a number of documents bearing on his
administration among the state papers at Santa Fé, or we might think
the princely fellow, going out conquering and to conquer, scattered
commissions and victories with a free hand.
How La Villa Real de Santa Fé was lost and won is an old tale and
often told, and details of battles, at least of Indian fighting, are
not interesting. Enough that, after the summer camp at or near Old
Zuni, Vargas with his army pressed on to the siege of the Capital. The
slayers were a few hundreds of white men, with red allies; the slain
were of a number that has never been reckoned.
Father Francisco Corvera administered absolution to the entire command
before battle, and, as the foreign army was preparing for a general
onslaught, the Pueblos stole out in the night, leaving the city in
possession of the fair race which left nothing but desolation in its
track.
The brutal instincts of this Vargas (whom I hate, and the judicious
reader must hate too) hardened and intensified with increasing power
and advancing years. One of the worst of his bad race, he labored
unceasingly for the conversion of the aborigines. His position allowed
immeasurable sweep for cruelty which we may be sure he enjoyed to the
utmost, and the cross became the object of bitter hatred to the heathen
he claimed for an inheritance. He it was who wrote to the viceroy of
Mexico, applying for more troops to carry on the crusade: “You might
as well try to convert Jews without the Inquisition as Indians without
soldiers.”
Notwithstanding his religious zeal and boast recorded on Inscription
Rock at Zuni, Vargas missed the high place at which he aimed, not,
like Columbus and Cortez, because he deserved too greatly, but because
the regiment in garrison and the corporation of Santa Fé, in 1695,
presented charges to the viceroy, Count Galvas, against him for
peculation. He was accused of using public money for private purposes;
of drawing on the public treasury for purchase of corn, mules, etc.
for settlers, and of selling them and pocketing the proceeds. “Also of
having drawn drafts and received moneys for expenses never incurred.”
He was removed from office 1697, and with him, doubtless, the faithful
knight and true love, Don Antonio Eusebio de Cubero, who we will
believe had the soul of a true knight, and no part or lot in these
ignoble transactions.
Whatever he was, Rosita saw him with eyes anointed; from the beginning
a hero predestined to triumph on every field he might enter. I do
believe that, in the rough campaigning through the land of sand and
thorn, he kept her lovely face--the Millais face--in his heart of
hearts. That he never vowed a vow nor kissed a kiss that was not hers,
and, loyal to his own Rose of Castile, as he was to his king, he
marched in the triumph through the streets of Seville. There minstrels
and troubadours hymned high praises (_romances_ they were called), and
bright lady-loves waved silken scarfs to the _conquistadores_, home
from the far New World. They were men in the bloom of youth, the very
flower of the Peninsula, and Antonio Eusebio de Cubero was proudest and
noblest where all were proud and many noble.
From the arched window, set in quaint fretwork and arabesques, Rosita
looked out and the banner over her was love. Perhaps the Millais
face--that eager, anxious, haunting face--flushed a little at sight of
the grand parade in the pomp and circumstance the old Spaniard loved so
well. The soft, dark eyes were not bewildered by the rich confusion of
color, the far-floating flags, the dazzle of steel and of silver. Swift
glances singled out one beneath the wavy folds of the royal standard,
brave as he was beautiful, whose prancing steed, flashing arms, crest,
and plume were familiar, whose sash her own soft hands embroidered.
Let us picture reunion after years of separation, joy after anguish,
the rapture of rescue from peril, and so leave them, walking with happy
feet by the bed of sweet basil, as the first lovers walked in the cool
of the day under the palms of Paradise.
While I write, the letter of the dear, dead woman lies on the table
before me; the fading sign from a rose-leaf hand that has been part
of the dust of old Spain so many and many a year. Frail thing, most
perishable, outlasting kings, thrones, the wrecks of states, the decay
of ages! Closing day finds me dreaming over it in the waning light.
I look to the purpling hills. As the sun sinks, they change to fairy
tents, under a line of exquisite color, pink, orange, pale sea green,
the changeful fringe on the banner of night, ending far up the zenith
in a field of spotless azure. In the farness of the distance the cold,
white peaks of the Stony mountains warm for one supreme moment in the
solemn beauty of the after-glow, their summits clear-cut against the
rainless blue.
Rapidly the shadows deepen. Violet changes to leaden hues, rose dims to
pearl gray, the flushed white foreheads pale, the fires of sunset burn
out, and the short twilight, ending in gloom, is the day’s burial.
Human phantoms flit across the dusky spaces. King and priest, savage
and Christian, knight and lady, shadows all, passing within the mighty
shadow. Under the low window I hear the tramp of feet pacing to and fro
like the ebb and flow of the tide. The hurrying feet are ghost-like,
too, chasing the flying specters’ gold and fame. History is but
repeating itself. The restless, dissatisfied souls of the New World
are the same brotherhood as those of the Castiles; the same as when
Solomon sent ships from Tarshish to bring back gold of Ophir; the same
jealous souls as when the king was wroth because the people shouted,
Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands. Now, as then,
morning and evening bring their old beauty, the cooling balm of the
breeze follows the burning day. The west wind cools no fever of heart
or brain; still are men searching for signs of gold and fighting the
old battle against oblivion, and still do loving women sit by solitary
fires and wait for them to come. These things have not changed; they
will never change. Humanity remains the same.
The foreign charm which was the dower of the historic city is dying
fast, but not quite dead. The spell, long lingering, is slow to pass
away, though student and antiquary are blowing the dust from the books
of Chronicles and letting the white light of day into obscured and
darkened chambers.
In this dimness once glowed the poetic coloring of romance and
chivalry, in which the valorous Espego and his knights founded the City
of Holy Faith. If the ghosts of the venturesome heroes revisit the
field of their victories, they may yet be reminded of soft Andalusia.
There is a hint of Castilian grace in the vanishing _sombrero_, in
the folds of the ever-falling but never-fallen _rebosa_, a touch of
passing sweetness in the prolonged _adios_. Blent with the familiar
benediction, now in my ear, “_Vago usted con Dios que usted lo pase
bien_” (“May you depart with God and continue well”), the hovering
shades might hear the dreamy plash of bright fountains and the light
love song under the barred windows of fair Cordova.